The Phoenix Suns held their eighth workout leading up to the 2013 NBA Draft that included more options at No. 57 and a familiar face for the third time. No big names. No first round prospects. Just another workout showing the due diligence nature of GM Ryan McDonough as well as his thorough approach to his first draft running the Suns.

This workout was highlighted by no players rated on the Top 75 of the Big Board, but had some familiar faces. Korie Lucious (Iowa State) was in for the third time for a workout. By now hopefully the team has his number picked out for Summer League and his locker name plate printed out.

Another familiar (name) with ties to the Suns today was Elston Turner Jr. His dad was an assistant here in Phoenix for a few years before being unceremoniously left out of the mix as the interim head coach.

Turner Jr. is a defensive stopper with great size and strength to defend multiple perimeter positions, but was inconsistent as an offensive weapon in college. He has the potential as a shooter, but as a one-on-one scorer he has a ways to go on the offensive end as a whole. Pledger has a similar build as a big, physical guard.

The rest of the workout group had some interesting prospects like Snaer, who became a household name for his heroics including multiple game-winners during his career. Clark is a combo guard that can play both positions and at times was the reason Belmont was so successful in their two-guard system. A system that is relevant in today's NBA.

Dunk City was in attendance as well with Brown who has a nice overall skill-set and was afforded this opportunity based on his teams success in the tournament.

Six months ago, to tell you the truth, I would not have been able to tell you I would be here in this moment. I knew that I had the talent to be here, but I didn't think I was going to have the chance to showcase it.

Here is a scouting take on the prospects:

Michael Snaer -- Florida State -- Senior shooting guard: Over the years he has collected his share of game-winners (four, see below) and has the ability to knock down tough shots. He is undersized as a full-time two and lacks the ability to consistently create offense for himself.

Elston Turner Jr. -- Texas A&M -- Senior wing: Big, strong physical wing that can be imposing on the defensive end when he is not trying to be an offensive player. He is a quality shooter with space, but not a iso-heavy type scorer. Turner has pedigree with a father that has played and coached in the NBA.

Sherwood Brown -- Florida Gulf Coast -- Senior guard: The glue to "Dunk City" is more that just a highlight reel. He can handle the ball, score, get to the rim, and rebound the ball well for his position.

Ian Clark -- Belmont -- Senior point guard: Not as highly regarded as his teammate from Belmont, but Clark has the size and play-making ability to be a quality point guard at any level. Quality athlete, good scorer, and feel for the game.

Korie Lucious -- Iowa State -- Senior guard: Third time around the Suns know him well. Combo guard, quality defender, and good shooter. Had some issues off the court leading to a transfer, but made the most of the situation at ISU.

Steven Pledger -- Oklahoma -- Senior guard: Another sturdy wing with great strength and size for position. Quality defender and good three-point shooter.

As has been rumored for weeks in real life, my "mock" front office saw the logic in making a trade Marcin Gortat to the Portland Trailblazers in exchange for Joel Freeland (2 yrs, $3 mill per year) and the #10 overall pick.

Trading Gortat

It's time to get the most possible for Gortat, and the Trailblazers obliged with giving back the #10 pick. While the Blazers need to get "older" with a veteran center to play next to LaMarcus Aldridge, the Suns need to get a lot younger.

The trade, as rumored in real life and executed in this mock draft, cannot be completed until the new league year starts. But that didn't stop us, and it doesn't often stop real teams either. (though that might have allowed GS to wiggle out of the Amare trade in 2009, because it wasn't finalized on draft night, but that's just a rumor)

Really, the Suns need to get younger and Marcin Gortat, who will be 30 and playing for another team this time next year, is one of their best assets. Getting a 2013 lottery pick - #10 even! - is a heckuva deal.

Rudy Gobert

At the time of the mock draft (two weeks ago today), 21-year old Rudy Gobert was ranked on most sites the best available pure center after Nerlens Noel and Alex Len. With those two off the board, it was still a toss up between Gobert, Cody Zeller (20) and Steven Adams (19) for me.

My fellow front office folks were also torn between the three, and even Mason Plumlee, but nbadraftinsider,com's Managing Editor and the only real live NBA scout in our "mock" front office Kris Habbas gave a great scouting report on Gobert to sell us all on him.

Obviously there is a chance for him to not pan out, but in all honestly, what is the difference between Gobert and Noel? They are both quality defensive prospects with one main skill to hang their hat on; Shot-Blocking.

Noel is a better overall athlete, but Gobert is further along physically and has the tools to be a great defender. He is efficient on offense and has to improved year-by-year on that end showing potential of being a 10-10-3 type player.

Can he be a bust? Absolutely, but so can Noel, Len, Zeller, Adams, and the other high profile big men. That is the risk with drafting a big.

Who should they target at 10? If you have Oladipo already and are losing Gortat the easiest thing to do is draft a five. Gobert is the highest rated five to me left. If you are not in love with Gobert then I shy away from the position altogether because Olynyk and Zeller have higher bust potential than Gobert.

Well, I really wanted a five and so Gobert was the pick. On the actual draft night, the Suns' pick might be different. Gobert came to Phoenix weeks ago - at the start of the workout season - while Steven Adams came in at the end, just a few days ago. It's possible they like Adams more.

The wildcard here is Mason Plumlee, older than the others but extremely athletic. If the Suns see too much bust potential in Gobert and Adams, then maybe they go with a more sure thing in Mason Plumlee from Duke who will already be 23 or 24 next season as a rookie. Lower ceiling, but higher floor.

Why not Cody Zeller? The mock front office thinks he will be a 4 in the NBA, not a 5. The Suns have a few guys who play the 4, and are bringing back Channing Frye next year too. They really need a 5.

But then again, maybe Zeller has the highest ceiling overall and so maybe he's the better pick.

But I took Gobert. Deal with it.

What of the other lottery pick trades?

None of the others worked out. We decided that none of the trade offers from Detroit (8), Minnesota (9) and OKC (12) gave the Suns enough of a return. Better to hold onto Dudley than to take on salary.

If Dudley goes, then salary needs to be cleared AND the Suns need to get a young prospect as well.

What's next?

With Victor Oladipo and Rudy Gobert officially "mock" Phoenix Suns, that is not all. Oh no, that is not all.

The Suns still hold a lot of cards - Dudley, young players Morris, Morris and Marshall, and the #30 overall.

Surprisingly to some Suns fans, these were somewhat coveted assets to teams outside the top 10.

Since Dudley was a #21 pick himself and is not a true NBA starter on a championship team (as Eric from canishoopus.com said: "we missed the part where he is a multi-time All Star"), maybe the better deals are a few picks away.

I spent the next few days of our Mock Draft negotiating for more youth - I wanted at least two new young players with the second half of the first round.

Really good assistants are hard to find, yet almost no one outside of NBA coaching and front office circles even knows who they are.

I had never heard of Roy Rogers before two weeks ago, even forgetting that he was a marginal NBA player at one point. Since retiring, Rogers has been an assistant for all of five seasons with three different teams.

He spent last year working with Andre Drummond in Detroit, and two years before that working with Brook Lopez in New Jersey. His total years on an NBA bench in an assistant role: five seasons.

Yet, he's been coveted by many teams this offseason while head coaches are installing new staffs all over the country.

First, he was destined for Sacramento. Was even hint-introduced by new coach Mike Malone after he assisted Malone in a pre-draft workout.

Then, he was off to Phoenix to work with Jeff Hornacek. Word leaked a week ago, though not confirmed by anyone in the Suns organization. Only that there were finalists and nothing would be announced until the ink was dry on contracts.

Then last night, word leaked that Rogers was waffling again. This time to possibly reunite with his old head coach, Lawrence Frank, back in New Jersey to work for Jason Kidd.

"We couldn't finalize a deal with Roy Rogers," Suns President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby said. "We have withdrawn our offer. As the contract process unfolded, we have decided that it's best for the Suns to look elsewhere. Financial considerations were not a factor."

The Suns will now need to hire two assistants to join Jerry Sichting and Jeff Hornacek on the Suns' sidelines.

Really good assistants are hard to find, yet almost no one outside of NBA coaching and front office circles even knows who they are.

I had never heard of Roy Rogers before two weeks ago, even forgetting that he was a marginal NBA player at one point. Since retiring, Rogers has been an assistant for all of five seasons with three different teams.

He spent last year working with Andre Drummond in Detroit, and two years before that working with Brook Lopez in New Jersey. His total years on an NBA bench in an assistant role: five seasons.

Yet, he's been coveted by many teams this offseason while head coaches are installing new staffs all over the country.

First, he was destined for Sacramento. Was even hint-introduced by new coach Mike Malone after he assisted Malone in a pre-draft workout.

Then, he was off to Phoenix to work with Jeff Hornacek. Word leaked a week ago, though not confirmed by anyone in the Suns organization. Only that there were finalists and nothing would be announced until the ink was dry on contracts.

Then last night, word leaked that Rogers was waffling again. This time to possibly reunite with his old head coach, Lawrence Frank, back in New Jersey to work for Jason Kidd.

"We couldn't finalize a deal with Roy Rogers," Suns President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby said. "We have withdrawn our offer. As the contract process unfolded, we have decided that it's best for the Suns to look elsewhere. Financial considerations were not a factor."

The Suns will now need to hire two assistants to join Jerry Sichting and Jeff Hornacek on the Suns' sidelines.

Many people believe the Phoenix Suns have the worst collection of talent in the NBA. And with only Kendall Marshall and (now) #5 overall pick Victor Oladipo under 24 years old when next season starts, the potential development of the team to elite status as currently constructed is next to nil.

The league's second-oldest lottery team (Dallas was older) returns as many as 11 guaranteed contracts from last season's worst-in-the-West squad (if you count Shannon Brown and P.J. Tucker). After Marshall and Oladipo, only Michael Beasley, Markieff Morris and Marcus Morris are as young as 24. The rest of the squad is older than that.

The Plan

That's why, as the mock-Suns acting General Manager, I decided to shake up the roster as much as possible in the 2013 NBA Draft. Frankly, while the Draft is considered "weak", the top 10-15 players are still more talented and possess brighter futures than most anyone on the Suns' current roster.

Once the mock draft rules were in place and the doors opened for business, I worked feverishly to acquire up to two more lottery picks to send out there with Victor Oladipo.

I wanted a pivot man AND another shooter/scorer before the 13th pick was announced. And I wanted to use two of the Suns best players, Jared Dudley (28 next season) and Marcin Gortat (29 next season), as the bait.

My thinking was that Dudley and Gortat couldn't help the team win more than 25 games, so how much worse could it get if they were each replaced with one or more younger players? Plus, getting younger would help the Suns acquire a good player or two in the much stronger 2014 draft as well.

There is no quick fix in the NBA, so it's completely unrealistic to imagine the Suns being completely made over in one summer AND still have Gortat and Dudley in the rotation. With Gortat expiring in a year, potentially leaving with no compensation whatsoever, and Dudley at the peak of his trade value, it was time to strike.

Marcin Gortat

As soon as the bell sounded, the Portland mock-GM emailed me the offer everyone's been talking about on the interwebs. It's an offer I would not be surprised to see in real life too: Marcin Gortat for the #10 and Joel Freeland.

I wanted to use this #10 pick on the next best available pure center on the board - the one with the highest upside regardless of the time it would take to develop him.

For a while, I tried to replace Freeland with Myers Leonard, but even I was lukewarm on that given that the center the Suns would draft at 10 would likely be better than Leonard, while Leonard might stunt our rookie's growth. It's not really a good idea to have two guys who need the same amount of development playing the same exact position. Plus, the Suns would need a veteran stop-gap center to play minutes too, leaving either Leonard or the rookie on the end of the bench. Other than Leonard, Portland didn't have much to offer in place of Freeland, since half their roster would be free agents in a matter of days.

We spit-shook on the trade, giving each other an out: as long as Portland didn't use the #10 in a trade to move up, and as long as the Suns hadn't found a better trade for Gortat and as long as the Suns saw someone on the draft board they liked.

Before the Suns took Oladipo at 5, I engaged OKC on Gortat for #12. They needed an upgrade on Kendrick Perkins, and the Suns had a big hole at shooting guard. We were both willing to discuss Gortat for Perkins and the #12, straight up. The Suns would be eating about $12 million in salary over two years, so I had to decide if the #12 was worth that much sunk cost.

But then I got the Portland offer - a better pick and lesser salary in return for Gortat. In order to add Jeremy Lamb to the pot, we briefly discussed adding Lamb and Dudley to the trade.

That would have returned Jeremy Lamb, #12 pick and a $10 million salary hit for two seasons in exchange for Gortat and Dudley.

Tick tock. Teams on the clock. Portland offer (#10 and Joel Freeland) in the pocket. With the #10 or #12, I would want to get the best remaining center on the board.

Jared Dudley

Let's see what I can get for Dudley on his own. If I could trade Dudley for something equivalent to, or better than, Jeremy Lamb then I could tell OKC to take a hike. I really didn't want to eat Perkins 2-yr, $20 million contract.

I tried to engage Sacramento at #7 for Dudley, but got a quick "no thanks". I was surprised, considering Sacramento really needed a solid veteran like Dudley to supplement an already-young core, but wasn't going to squeeze too hard trying to get blood from a stone. Moving on.

Two hot options for Dudley were #8 (Detroit) and #9 (Minnesota). At 8 or 9, we could grab C.J. McCollum to play combo guard between Oladipo and Dragic. Hornacek loved his three-guard lineup in the late 80s with the Suns, and MCollum's presence would provide the Suns the secondary scorer they so badly need while allowing Oladipo to play the Tucker/Sefolosha role as defender and spot-up shooter for kick-outs.

Detroit needed a steady presence for their young squad, so Dudley was a draw for them. They also were struggling with too many combo guards and not enough pure playmaking to take advantage of their big men, so Kendall Marshall was an interesting option for them too.

As it stood going into their pick, Detroit was holding firm wanting too much back for the #9 and a combo guard, who would have just duplicated McCollum and potentially stunted his growth. The other shooting guards in the draft (KCP, Shabazz) besides McCollum would have stunted Oladipo's growth, in my opinion. We needed a playmaking combo guard who could spell Dragic and provide scoring in the second unit while playing alongside Oladipo.

Minnesota was another option for the Suns with the #9 pick in exchange for Dudley. But Minnesota played hard ball, wanting a lopsided trade in their favor that made it unpalatable. They wanted the Suns to take back a long-term contract, plus too many draft considerations, really diluting the value of the #9 pick. Plus, I wanted McCollum at that pick.

Would either MInnesota or Detroit cave, in time for the Suns to end up with McCollum for Dudley?

Would the Suns take Portland's offer of #10 and Freeland for Gortat? Or would we find a better deal?